Unemployment Rate Down Due To Participation Rate Decline • Hacker News Board

Re: Unemployment Rate Down Due To Participation Rate Decline

#11

Post by lkrubner » Mon, Sep 10, 2012, 6:47 AM UTC

nandemo wrote: post #9

lkrubner wrote: post #8

Just a reminder to everyone: the decline of male participation in the economy is a long term trend that started at least in the 1950s: http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2007/jan/wk2/art03.htm As the Bureau Of Labor puts it: "The labor force participation rate of men has been decreasing since the 1950s, having registered 86.4 percent in 1950, 79.7 percent in 1970, 76.4 percent in 1990, and 73.3 percent in 2005. This decline…

The technical term for the baby boom thing is demographic window . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_window E.g., Brazil is in the demographic window now, and labour participation has recently peaked. Most Western European countries are past that window, as is the US. If they have an uptick in labour participation, I'd guess it's due to immigration. Another factor is simply the country's economic development s…

"Not clear why you think 76% for female labour participation is infeasible. They have to work."

How is this coherent? If they have to work then why isn't the rate 100%? If you agree that 24% are not working, then you admit that there might be forces at work that could keep 20% or 30% or 40% or 50% from not working. The sentence "They have to work" could only be justified if the participation rate was 100%

Re: Unemployment Rate Down Due To Participation Rate Decline

#12

Post by nandemo » Mon, Sep 10, 2012, 7:42 AM UTC

lkrubner wrote: post #11

nandemo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technical term for the baby boom thing is demographic window . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_window E.g., Brazil is in the demographic window now, and labour participation has recently peaked. Most Western European countries are past that window, as is the US. If they have an uptick in labour participation, I'd guess it's due to immigration. Another factor is simply the country's economic development s…

"Not clear why you think 76% for female labour participation is infeasible. They have to work." How is this coherent? If they have to work then why isn't the rate 100%? If you agree that 24% are not working, then you admit that there might be forces at work that could keep 20% or 30% or 40% or 50% from not working. The sentence "They have to work" could only be justified if the participation rate was 100%

> The sentence "They have to work" could only be justified if the participation rate was 100%

Seriously? It could mean "many of those 76% have to work so that they won't starve" since, as I said, a lot of them are working on subsistence agriculture. As opposed to a lot of those 58% of women in US, who could stop working and still not starve (for instance, see Japan's figures).

Re: Unemployment Rate Down Due To Participation Rate Decline

#13

Post by lkrubner » Mon, Sep 10, 2012, 4:35 PM UTC

nandemo wrote: post #12

lkrubner wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Not clear why you think 76% for female labour participation is infeasible. They have to work." How is this coherent? If they have to work then why isn't the rate 100%? If you agree that 24% are not working, then you admit that there might be forces at work that could keep 20% or 30% or 40% or 50% from not working. The sentence "They have to work" could only be justified if the participation rate was 100%

> The sentence "They have to work" could only be justified if the participation rate was 100% Seriously? It could mean "many of those 76% have to work so that they won't starve" since, as I said, a lot of them are working on subsistence agriculture. As opposed to a lot of those 58% of women in US, who could stop working and still not starve (for instance, see Japan's figures).

Why is it 76% and not 77%? And why not 75%? What about 79%? Do you have the slightest bit of evidence that exactly 76% of the women need to work, but not 77% or 78% of the women? You can not justify the statement "They have to work" unless 100% of them are working. (Or you could take the alternate route and simply define working as necessary, which is how some economists will occasionally treat the phrase "at the margin". But at that point, you are not saying much, other than "76% of the women need to work because that is how I have defined the word 'need' in my model.")

Re: Unemployment Rate Down Due To Participation Rate Decline

#14

Post by nandemo » Mon, Sep 10, 2012, 5:28 PM UTC

lkrubner wrote: post #13

nandemo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The sentence "They have to work" could only be justified if the participation rate was 100% Seriously? It could mean "many of those 76% have to work so that they won't starve" since, as I said, a lot of them are working on subsistence agriculture. As opposed to a lot of those 58% of women in US, who could stop working and still not starve (for instance, see Japan's figures).

Why is it 76% and not 77%? And why not 75%? What about 79%? Do you have the slightest bit of evidence that exactly 76% of the women need to work, but not 77% or 78% of the women? You can not justify the statement "They have to work" unless 100% of them are working. (Or you could take the alternate route and simply define working as necessary, which is how some economists will occasionally treat the phrase "at the mar…

Look, I don't have to "justify" anything. My initial comment was intended to add to yours, not to argue about a minor point or quibble about the meaning of simple natural language sentences such as "they have to work". I didn't assert or tried to prove that 76% is correct, I wondered why you thought 76% is implausible, as it seems totally plausible to me, that's all.

> Do you have the slightest bit of evidence that exactly 76% of the women need to work,

I never said that.